part of the sandbox adventure I am writing has a powerful follower of Arhallogen (Spider god) as one of the powerful bad guys.

I am considering putting in a group of weak cultists following Hmurresh (fly god) who are not supposed to try to stop the other person, but find out what they are doing and interfere if possible.

this is intended more as an offshoot of the real action(s) going on, but would give players the option to ally with the weaker cultists in a "the enemy of my enemy" kind of way.I note that both gods give shapechange as an ability, like all beast lords, I was just wondering what options this gives?because in OOTP there are multiple types of fly, without even considering others like dragonfly, as options.also spiders: in OOTP there is only a giant spider and I am going to make variants for my game for that anyway.

I am not specifically looking for advice on the cult itself, although if anyone has anything interesting I may well steal it (!!), I intend them to be deliberately not very threatening as they are being added mostly as an afterthought.

so what shapechange options do you think should be available? OOTP has common giant fly, needle fly and fire fly.

Eddie wrote:so what shapechange options do you think should be available? OOTP has common giant fly, needle fly and fire fly.

One thing I'd definitely try to work in there is the possibility for the bad guys to transform into SWARMS of flies or spiders. The idea of being overrun by a cloud of flies or a heaving carpet of normal sized spiders scares me more that the idea of a single giant fly/spider. By scares me, I am imagining I am a Hero who can fight WOLVES and BEARS etc., of course!

I'd also think about having followers of these gods acquire 'gifts' - being blessed with partial transformation into the god's archetypal form. So extra limbs, acidic vomiting mouthparts, wall crawling, etc. It's easy to model these kind of things in AFF as there are so few moving parts you simply write an 'exception' - like a Monster's special attack or a Hero's 'Talent'.

This post reminds me that I had these to gods opposed to each other in a game a ran a couple of years ago. Some of the relevant encounters are here:

thanks all for the ideas.I have watched Grimm and like the idea of a partial transformation.

drbargle I have actually read those blog posts about 18 months ago when I first started looking into AFF2 as it happens!just couldn't remember how I found them and googling the gods names didn't help.

the cultists are now in a cave with some flies that they brought with them as eggs, whether the players will ever interact with them I don't know.

the witch worshipper of Arhallogen is much more likely to be encountered due to her location (in a previously elven forest but nobody has seen them for some time, actually due to a dragon taking up residence, but they will be unlikely to meet that. I hope) where players are likely to go to see why the healing herbs no longer grow there for a herbalist in the town.

it is likely to be an early pick up plot hook...maybe.cannot rely on players after all!